|
Critical
comments on Bill Evans' choreography and performance:
“Chicago
Tap Theatre’s loving tribute to 65-year-old modern-rhythmic
dance barrier-breaker Bill Evans is an experience of intimate
and symphonic proportions….His breadth of experience in
ballet, modern and tap dance has molded Evans into a uniquely
lyrical-percussive artist.
And while fusion might be an easy buzzword to slap onto
his merging of styles, he more accurately melds each
discipline into the other so that only movement—with no
titles attached—remains.”—Lucia Mauro,
Chicago Tribune
“Bill
Evans is an enduring and influential modern dance mainstay.
What a treat to see a master choreographer such as he
in the full maturity of his performing career.”—Wayne Lee,
Washington Times
“Evans
knows how to entertain, and he does it in such a distinct and
personal way that by evening’s end every fan should feel
almost like a friend….He is quite simply a master of his
craft, and if anything he gets better with age.
He does it all and it is this kind of versatility that
allows him to go it alone for an evening with such
success.”—Helen Forsberg, Salt
Lake Tribune
"One
of the best choreographic forces to touch the American Dance
scene." -- Walter Terry, Saturday
Review
"Evans
has a characteristic fluency in his choreography that enables
him to work in a variety of
moods."
-- Anna Kisselgoff, New
York Times
"Evans'
perception of character is witty, economical and
precise." -- Don McDonough, New
York
Times
“Evans
danced with power, grace and masterful control—not to
mention the incredible stamina that allowed him to forge
through the two and one half hour program with the energy of
an entire company.” Everett Evans, Houston
Chronicle
"It
would be naive to believe that the entire history and spirit
of a nation could be captured on stage within the limitations
of two short dances, yet that is the impression one gets on
seeing
the
Bill Evans Dance Company." -- Julinda Lewis Williams, Dance
Magazine
"His
dance is very much about movement itself, exploring a full
sphere of action rotating around a strongly defined axis. What
makes the dances so satisfying to watch is that Evans brings
each movement to its logical conclusion, completing the
thought before
executing a smooth transition to the next idea." --
Kathryn Bernheimer, (Boulder, CO) Sunday
Camera
“Danced
with absolute magnificence….Evans’ wonderful communicative
gifts could accomplish anything.”—Byron Belt,
Long Island Press
“His
dancers are excellent, fearless technicians and theatrical
performers….The company’s rambunctious comic flair and
each member’s individuality are used to good
advantage.”—Linda Small, Dance
Magazine
THE
WASHINGTON POST
Alan
M. Kriegsman, Dance Critic
Will the real Bill Evans
please stand? This
amazing dancer-choreographer from Utah, currently in residence
at George Washington University, seems to have more disguises
than Sherlock Holmes, all wondrously credible and diverting.
His
solo recital drew an appreciative audience of several hundred
to the Marvin Theater Tuesday night.
The program consisted of eight highly contrasted dance
monologues, all but two choreographed by himself.
Evans, a long-time member of Utah’s Repertory Dance
Theatre, now directs his own troupe in Salt Lake City and is a
frequent guest artist in this country and abroad.
Evans’
eclecticism, his penchant for satire, the splendid
independence of his limbs and his knife-point shifts of tempo
and dynamics all put one in mind of Paul Taylor.
But Evans’ sleek body lines and way of moving are
entirely his own, as is his remarkably deft, resilient
technique.
To
music ranging from Bach to Glenn Miller to Indian ragas,
Evans’ choreographic idioms shuttled from poetic abstraction
to ironic portraiture to frisky parody to trance-like
introspection. As
a dancer, he also moved with equal ease from the flippancy of
Matt Mattox’s “Opus Jazz Loves Bach” to the feverish
agitation of an excerpt from Anna Sokolow’s “Lyric
Suite.” Evans’
own inventions seemed smart and fluent, but they left one
wondering how he might fare with larger compositional
structures. There
was no question, though, about the abundance of his talent.
SAN
DIEGO UNION
Anne
Marie Welsh, Arts Critic
Bill Evans has been teaching as a regent’s lecturer
at UCSD since last week.
He has solid reputation as a choreographer and teacher.
Of the more than 100 works he has created for ballet
and modern companies coast to coast, only three had crossed my
path before last night. Those
three group pieces had intelligence, wit and good nature to
recommend them, though nothing so distinctive they suggested
an Evans style. Last
night Evans performed two of his own solos at Mandeville
Auditorium. As a
dancer, he is something special, with a style very much his
own. He moves
with a sensuous abandon and rhythmic subtlety uncommon among
male dancers.
Evans
has performed for 20 years, first with ballet, then with
modern and finally with his own companies in Seattle and
Winnipeg. His own technique looks neither modern, classical, nor
some eclectic mix of the two.
It’s as if he re-thought the whole impulse toward
movement for himself and arrived at some rather startling
conclusions. Like
Isadora Duncan and Erick Hawkins, he seems to center himself
in the solar plexus and let the energy move in continuous
waves outward. There’s
nothing sharp, angular or aggressive in his dancing, nothing
particularly contemporary, not a drop of salesmanship.
When
you watch him, your eyes go not to his handsome face or lovely
feet, but to his breastbone, the vulnerable, merely human spot
that seems to be guiding him.
His
dances were different in character—a tap number that became
a character dance, a primal-modern work based on Indian
classical dance. “Pop’s
Rag,” set to Scott Joplin piano rags, was a soft-shoe with
taps full of rhythmic invention that never slavishly followed
the music’s syncopated beat. Evans has the familiar tap steps down cold—time steps,
buck ‘n wings, windmill spins.
He dances organically, though, with the nuances of his
arms movements, his spiraling torso as interesting as the
talking taps. In
the end, the number seems a nostalgic tribute from one kind of
dancer to those of another age.
“Tin-Tal”
was set to music for sarod and tabla by Mahapurush Misra.
Here Evans let all his subtle virtuosity show.
The work began on the floor, moved broadly through
space and closed with a long, spiraling passage in which the
hands fleetingly spoke that gestural language of the mudras. Contrasts between large and small-scaled motions, fast
and slow, up and down, sustained interest in a piece as
minimal as its score. Like
a dervish or a prophet, Evans absorbed himself in the spirit
of movement without the fakery prevalent in so much pop-primal
choreography. Instead of hypnotizing the mind, he deepens its
awareness.
|
